


Need

by Miri1984



Series: What Makes Me Happy [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Almost smut, Angst, Multi, Stucky - Freeform, angst without plot?, post captain america 2, soldier ghost compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2014-06-05
Packaged: 2018-02-03 13:41:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1746692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Companion piece to "Want" from Steve's point of view. This one wouldn't let me go until I'd written it.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Need

**Author's Note:**

> Companion piece to "Want" from Steve's point of view. This one wouldn't let me go until I'd written it.

Steve didn’t know what made him happy. 

When he’d first gone to visit Sam at the VA Sam had asked him that, and Steve, who had always considered himself a happy guy, really, couldn’t think of an answer.

He’d tried.

That night he and Sam had gone out — Sam had told him if he didn’t know what made him happy he could at least go with Sam while _he_ did stuff he liked, and sure, that had been nice. It’d been nice to sit in the cosy bar around the corner from Sam’s place and drink beer and eat pie (Sam had bought them apple pie, because he said the bar did the best in DC and watching Captain America eat Apple Pie seemed to give him some sort of obscure kick) and play pool and a few people at the bar had recognised him, but more of them had recognised Sam. They’d greeted him with easy words and talked to Steve like he was a regular guy, taking his association with Sam as some sort of membership card, he guessed. Sam had introduced him as “my friend, Steve,” and no one had blinked that Sam would personally know Captain America and Steve guessed Sam had a lot of friends simply by virtue of expecting people to like him, but more importantly, because he expected to like _them_ first. There was no judgement, just consideration.

It had been real nice, to make a friend like that. Someone who saw Steve first, rather than Captain America.

And then that night everything had gone to hell and months later, with Bucky in recovery in Avengers Tower and Steve trying his best to make the Avengers _work_ as something that had the same duties of SHIELD but none of the secrecy, none of the compartmentalisation that had lead to Pierce and Hydra and _Bucky being used_ he still wasn’t sure what made him happy.

When Bucky had said his name, unprompted, for the first time, he’d felt a surge of something. He wasn’t sure if it was happiness, how could you call it that, when it hurt like fire at the same time? But it was _something._

Seeing Peggy didn’t make him happy. He’d thought it did — the first time he visited and he didn’t realise how much damage there was. A series of tiny strokes, they said, gradually blacking out bits of her brain. She wouldn’t even have noticed the first few, the doctors said, they probably happened at night when she was sleeping, and all she would have felt was a bit groggy when she woke up.

These days they were more serious, but the doctors said that wouldn’t be what killed her, in the end. General organ decay, they said. The body gradually giving up. 

Steve wanted to scream about it, knowing of all the ways she could meet her end, being helpless in the face of it would be the absolute worst. 

He’d never been afraid of his own end, just the end of the people of he loved. Before he’d realised there could be worse things than ending.

The times when she remembered him were good, but they were tinged with the bitterness that she won’t remember forever. He told her about Bucky and she was overjoyed that he was back, but he spared her the details. On good days she’d tell him stories of the time the Winter Soldier had targeted her and their friend Jac Falsworth, and they were good stories — Peggy as a middle aged woman doing what Peggy had done so well, the things that made him love her when they’d been young (only a few years ago for him, an entire lifetime for her). 

On bad days she wept and raged that they’d been parted and it hurt because all the things he felt, inside, were raw and on the surface for her. She didn’t know how to filter any more, the tools were gone, like so many parts of her memory, and so she didn’t hold back where Steve would stop and try not to hurt. She lashed out at him, and at the world, and he understood, he really did, but it didn’t make it easier to bear. _We were supposed to have a life, Steve. I had it all planned out. Why did you go?_

He avoided her children. They shot eyes like daggers at him because on some days she remembered him better than she remembered them. The doctors tried to explain that earlier memories were usually the last to go, but it didn’t stop the resentment and Steve didn’t blame them. They weren’t his children. They were Peggy’s.

That was part of why it hurt to look at them.

When he came home to Bucky on those days it was Bucky who touched his shoulder and tried to soothe the hurt from him. He did it awkwardly, and it didn’t help much, and it didn’t make him happy, but that Bucky was trying at least made it easier to bear.

That had almost made him happy — when Bucky moved into the apartment Tony had given Steve (his way too large apartment) there’d been _something_. A sense of rightness, maybe, of things falling into place, pieces fitting back together, however worn around the edges. Bucky had seemed pleased as well, that he didn’t need constant watching any more (although really he was constantly watched, with Jarvis and Vision and Steve always on the alert) and they settled into a rhythm, learning each other’s new habits. It was strange, to be able to cook and eat together without scrimping or saving, to share time and space and discover the future the way Steve had always wanted to. He’d been assiduously working through his list, before Bucky came back, and Sam had helped, but having someone to do it _with_ made all the difference, and they disagreed about what was a good film and what wasn’t (Steve liked Blade Runner and 2001 a Space Odyssey, Bucky prefers Die Hard and Indiana Jones, neither of them would ever watch a war movie) but having disagreements felt good, reminded him of the times they’d fought back in Brooklyn, when Bucky had been so damned sure he was right about something and Steve had been stubborn enough to fight with him to the point of putting up his fists…

… At which point Bucky would always give in and call him a punk and tell him it didn’t matter.

Because he was afraid of hurting Steve.

It was different now, of course. Steve, going into details about why the lighting and scene atmosphere of Blade Runner made it anything but _boring_ had finally put up his fists and Bucky had burst out laughing, then looked at him with a speculative eye. Steve had caught that look and grinned. “Well I _could_ take you on this time, you know,” and Bucky’s eyes had flashed and they’d taken themselves down to the training rooms to spar.

It had been amazing.

Steve didn’t have to hold back with Bucky. Didn’t have to stop himself from hurting him. And he felt _pushed_ in a way he didn’t unless he was fighting Natasha and he _knew_ Natasha was more fragile (nothing to do with the fact that she was a woman, no, but she didn’t have serum and she fought dirty and sneaky because of that and it was excellent _training_ but it didn’t test his strength).

Bucky was faster than he’d been during the war, but Steve wasn’t holding back any more (something that Steve should have realised he’d been doing then, but there were so many lies between them after Azzano, and so many half truths and excuses that were too late to repair). Bucky moved with so much efficiency of movement — not grace so much as brutality. It was hard for Steve to keep up, like it had been on the bridge in DC, where Bucky and he had felt evenly matched. Not outmatched, like he had against Loki, but _evenly_. The closest he’d come before that had been fighting with Schmidt, although Schmidt had had none of Bucky’s training and half of Bucky’s tenacity. He’d been strong, but he’d never had to fight the way Steve and Bucky had, and that was why in the end he’d lost. 

Fighting Bucky was what Steve imagined it might have been like to be healthy before the serum. Two regular guys, going at it, as though neither of them had gone through serum and vita rays and torture and…

He stopped himself from thinking about that and just concentrated on the dance.

It felt that way, after a while. Not that Steve had ever made a habit of dancing. But moving like this, with a partner, is what he imagined dancing could have been like, with Peggy, with Sharon maybe some day.

They ended up locked on a practice mat in much the same position they’d been in on the helicarrier, Steve with his arm wrapped around Bucky’s neck, metal arm locked in his legs (which were only just strong enough to keep it from breaking free). Bucky was panting and half-laughing and cursing and Steve could smell his sweat and feel his muscles straining against him for a minute before Bucky went limp. Steve hadn’t been choking him, not this time, and he realised almost immediately that of all the positions they could have ended up in this was probably the worst for Bucky, mentally, so he’d dropped his hands.

“Easy Bucky, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have…”

Bucky twisted in his loose grip, so he was half lying on top of Steve, a strange, wild look in his eyes. Not Winter Soldier but not the new person he was trying to become either. They stared at one another for a moment, before Bucky scrambled to his feet and _ran._ Steve swallowed, not at all sure of what had gone wrong, but knowing it had been his fault, then he’d gathered himself to his feet. “Jarvis, please tell me if Bucky leaves the building.”

“He is heading back to your apartment, Captain,” Jarvis responded promptly. 

“Thank you.”

Steve picked up his towel and followed, not exactly running, it was obvious Bucky needed space, but going as quickly as he could manage. At the apartment he found Bucky’s sweats and shirt on the floor. He could hear the shower running and he was suddenly afraid that he’d missed an injury — it was possible he’d dislocated the shoulder again (although he would have felt it, surely?) or he’d hit Bucky’s head or hurt him some other way and he didn’t think, just pushed into the bathroom to find Bucky curled on the floor of the shower, shivering, arms wrapped around his knees.

“Bucky are you hurt?”

He looked up at him, eyes wide and blank. It took a second for Steve to realise that there was no steam rising from the water and he moved forward and found it ice cold, goose flesh had dimpled Bucky all over, his hair was wet and dripping around his face, icy cold to the touch.

“Damn, Bucky you’ve only got the cold water on — “ Steve leant into the shower, getting his shirt wet, and adjusted the taps for his friend, slowly, letting the warm water gently replace the cold until steam rose. Bucky kept shivering for a moment before he started to relax and Steve knelt down touching Bucky’s shoulder. “Did I hurt you?”

Bucky shook his head. Pushed Steve away with the flat of his hand. “I’ll be okay, I just. Didn’t.”

“I shouldn’t have pushed you that far.”

“It wasn’t the sparring _Rogers_. Leave me a bit, okay?”

Bucky wouldn’t look at him. “Okay. Just tell me if you need me all right?”

Bucky gave another, short, sharp nod. Tried for a smile. Failed. Managed a jaunty tone of voice at least, enough to make Steve’s heart stop pounding with worry. “Get out of here you punk, a man’s _naked.”_

Steve laughed and left, but he felt uneasy until Bucky came out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later, a towel wrapped around his waist and started hunting in the fridge for food, a forced whistle under his breath.

“Flashback,” Sam had said afterwards.

“To what? To the helicarrier? I had to stop him Sam and — “

“Steve seriously,” Sam had that exhausted expression he got with him sometimes, when he thought Steve was being unbelievably stupid.

It was nearly always to do with the service. Funny, how Fury had called Steve the perfect soldier when by all accounts everything he’d ever done was wrong, according to Sam.

 _Sam_ was the perfect soldier in Steve’s book. “If you think there aren’t worse things in your pal’s memory than what you did to him on the helicarrier you really didn’t read those files very carefully did you?”

Steve made a face and shied away from that thought. “Not everything is about me, huh?”

Sam smiled at him then affectionately clocked him over the back of his head. “It could have been what happened on the helicarrier, but the thing is, unless _he_ tells you what his triggers are you’re not gonna be able to predict them. Sparring though? Probably not the best idea right now. There’s a reason he hasn’t been cleared for active duty with the Avengers.”

“I’d have liked to have him at my back during that Ultron business,” Steve said.

“Yeah right up to the point where he had a flashback and forgot you weren’t his mission any more.” Sam said. Steve frowned and Sam held up his hands. “Look, I know he can remember now, but putting him on active duty anywhere near you and Tasha would be a damned fool move. His last standing orders were to kill you both, those trigger words are still implanted in his head and it won’t be your friend who shoots you, but it _will_ be him who feels the guilt for it. No more sparring, no active duty. You read my report and Hill agrees.”

Steve sighed and looked out the window. 

“I miss him, Sam.”

“I know, man.”

Bucky woke screaming three nights out of four. Steve was a light sleeper — necessary in his line of work. He could sleep anywhere, but the serum made it easy to transition from sleeping to waking, something that Bucky didn’t seem to share. Sometimes the nightmares lingered, sometimes he woke up in full Winter Soldier mode and tried to find weapons or break out of the apartment. Sometimes he was so cold to the touch that Steve had to wrap his arms around him until he stopped shivering, only to be shoved off as soon as Bucky came to.

Tonight Bucky was just sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, wearing his sleeping shorts and no shirt. Steve had turned up the heat in his room, finding that Bucky’s dreams tended to be better if there was not even the hint of cool to the air. He could acknowledge that he felt the same, really. Tasha and Sam always complained that their apartment was a furnace. He sat down next to him, reaching out and touching Bucky’s back, careful to avoid the scarring around the arm which he knew was sensitive. 

Bucky took a breath.

“Need to talk about it?” Steve asked. 

“Nothing to tell,” Bucky replied. His voice, though, was unsteady and there was sweat on the skin of his back. Steve could feel little shudders run through Bucky’s frame, like a horse who was trying to shoo off a fly. His heart hurt and when Bucky breathed in, that particular sound that presaged a sob, he couldn’t stop himself, he gripped Bucky’s arms and sank to his knees in front of him, trying to see his face, trying to _do_ something that could break through the walls.

Bucky looked at him with wide eyes, pulling back.

“You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to Bucky,” he said. “But you need to talk to someone.” _I need you to talk to someone._ “I can ask Sam…”

Bucky made a rough sound. “I don’t want to _talk_ about it Steve,” he said. “I don’t want. I don’t.” Bucky leaned forward and put his hands on either side of Steve’s face. Steve’s eyes flew open, frightened, for a moment, but there was no hint of the Soldier in Bucky’s gaze. Just something he’d never seen before. Or at least, never directed at _Steve._

When Bucky leaned forward and kissed him his mind whited out. It was like going into the ice again. A wall of blank that rose up and then shattered around him with a realisation that took the bottom out of his world and then put it back again somewhere _he’d never even thought of._

Oh _god_ so many things leapt out of the recesses of his brain and shook him. _What makes you happy?_ It was so easy to know now what that was, as Bucky's breath moved along his skin, as he felt the softness of Bucky's hair in his fingers and the beat of his heart under the smooth skin of his neck.

This _makes me happy —_ as Bucky pulled back from his lips and buried his head in the crook of Steve's neck and Steve allowed himself the luxury of kissing along Bucky's jaw. He hadn't even noticed that he'd surged forward, didn't realise that he was making noises under his breath as he drank in sensations he hadn't known that he craved.

Until he did.

Yes this made him happy. But Bucky had never shown any sign if wanting this from Steve before now and happiness was relative, right? 

Strategic brain was kicking in where hormones and desire had been in firm control. Bucky wasn’t the same cocky kid who’d worked his way through the entire female population of Brooklyn, wasn’t the same man who had caught the eye of Lord Falsworth daughter (hadn’t that been fun to try to hide from Jimmy). This was the man who had spent seventy years as someone else’s puppet and Steve’s happiness depended a whole lot on making sure _this_ Bucky was all right. “Bucky,” he said, amazed that he managed that simple word without gasping like a fish.

“Yeah?” Bucky’s voice was criminally low and grated across Steve’s nerve endings like fire, his lips were moving on Steve’s collarbone, his metal hand fisted in his shirt and his other was somehow halfway up underneath it and trailing patterns over Steve’s stomach and _oh god that felt good._

He pushed Bucky back and stood up. “This isn’t a good idea.” 

Bucky gave him a look that was _positively filthy._ “Looks like a good idea from where I’m sitting.” There was no mistaking the angle of his gaze and Steve felt himself blush all over, turning to try to hide himself in the tight shorts he wore to sleep, very _very_ aware that Bucky never wore anything but those to bed when Steve still preferred a shirt as well.

 _God_ he looked good. Steve struggled to find words with a mouth gone bone dry.

“You’re — it’s not. You don’t.”

Bucky smirked and leaned back a bit, but his eyes had gone defensive and sharp and Steve knew that look from when they were kids, it was the look he used when he was preparing Steve for disappointment, the look he’d had on his face when he told Steve he’d passed his physical, the look he’d given him when he wanted him to be happy with who he was and not try to be something he wasn’t.

But this time Steve could see he was closing himself up. Preparing _himself_ for disappointment. It was fragile and it cut Steve like a knife. “Use your _words,_ Steve,” he said.

“You’re in recovery,” he said. _You only want me because you remember me from before. You don’t want me because of_ me. _You just want someone and god help me I never realised it but that’s not good enough._

“You’re… there’s issues. Your memory hasn’t come back completely. You’re _fixating_ and — “

“Damn right,” Bucky said. He shifted forward and there was hunger and something predatory that made Steve think of the Winter Soldier and that _frightened him._

“Bucky I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re not hurting me. The opposite of that.”

Steve couldn’t find words to respond to that and Bucky could see the weakness there and took advantage of it — just like the Soldier on the Causeway, using two guns to get around the shield. It wasn’t a bullet, this time. It was _Bucky,_ who stood up and moved forward in one smooth motion, pressing Steve against the wall. His hands were on Steve’s waist, and his mouth was back on Steve’s neck, and Steve could feel every single inch of Bucky against him.

 _This makes me happy._ “I _want_ this, Steve,” Bucky said in his ear. 

“I want it too,” he couldn’t stop himself from saying that — he was always honest. “But you need to step away, Bucky. You need to take a big step backwards here.”

“Why?”

Steve took Bucky’s hands in his, feeling the cold metal and warm skin. Bucky threaded his flesh fingers through Steve’s as Steve led him back to the bed and sat down. 

He didn’t know what he was going to say until he said it, and when he did say it he wanted to take it back straight away. “Because I want this and I don’t know that you do.”

Bucky didn’t let him get away with it. _“Christ_ Steve, I just said I wanted it are you calling me a liar?”

There were so many insecurities under the surface. Years of being that skinny kid in Brooklyn, maybe, although he’d never really cared about the physical side of things until he realised that the things he wanted most were never going to be his unless he pushed, and pushed, and pushed. _You should focus on your art, Steve. There are other jobs, Steve. She just doesn’t see your good parts the way I can Steve._ “You never wanted it before,” he said.

 _That_ was the wrong thing to say. Bucky looked like he wanted to punch something. Him, probably. “What you’re gonna push me away now because we didn’t fuck when we were kids?” Oh my god he knew how to make Steve blush. “Do you remember there was a war Steve? Do you remember _what my Dad would have said if we’d fucked on the floor of his house?”_

It wasn’t that. It had never been that. Steve had never wanted it either, Bucky was his friend and his before-the-ice plan had included Bucky and Bucky’s wife and Bucky’s kids as well as Peggy’s and all of that had changed with the train.

He was honest enough to admit that if Bucky hadn’t fallen he would have tried harder to find a way to save himself. But he hadn’t been in love with Bucky, hadn’t wanted the touches and the kisses that _this_ Bucky was offering, not then. And that was part of the problem. 

“It’s different, Bucky. Times are different. You’re different and _I’m_ different and sure back when we were kids this wouldn’t have been easy and it’s not gonna be easy now but I need to know that you wanting this — isn’t just — “

“Isn’t just what?”

“A way for you to hide.”

_“What?”_

“A way for you to stop trying to think about what happened to you. To stop dealing with it.”

Bucky shoved Steve back. “Screw this.” He stormed into the kitchen and Steve had a moment of abject terror. _I’ve screwed it up and now we’ll never be happy and it’s not fair to finally find out what it it that I want and not be able to have it._

“Bucky! Bucky _please_ don’t go.”

Bucky stopped at the kitchen, leaning on the bench and breathing heavily like he was trying to stop himself from breaking things. Steve wanted to go to him, touch him, comfort him but after what had just happened he wasn’t at all sure he’d be able to do that without it being different and _that_ thought, the thought that what they’d tentatively _had_ before Bucky had kissed him was now slipping away made his hands shake.

“I’m never gonna _deal_ with it Steve,” Bucky said. “Seventy years of killing and torturing and being tortured isn’t something you _deal with_ okay? Didn’t Sam teach you anything?”

“Sam told me I needed to be careful,” Steve said. “He said you’d think I expected you to be the person you were before the war. The Bucky I grew up with. I told him you haven’t been him since Azzano.”

Bucky snarled. _“Azzano_ was a fucking walk in the park Steve you can’t even begin to imagine what came after.”

“I don’t have to. I read the files.”

Bucky looked at him. “You’re the dumbest guy I know, Steven Grant Rogers.”

An eyebrow twitched. “And you took all the stupid with you.”

“I love you, okay? I’ve loved you since we were kids, and yeah it’s different and it was different then, but so am I and so are you and I just. I _want.”_ He stopped. Steve didn’t think he could begin to process the words that had just been said. _I love you, okay?_ But it was what Bucky said next that broke his heart. “I’m allowed to want now. And I want you.”

_I’m allowed to want now._

_Bucky._

“I’m not going to — “ he started. Then he stopped. “You’re allowed to want whatever you want. I’m never going to try to stop you from that but it’s not just _you_ I’m protecting here. I’m not doing this casually. I’m not just. Going to be. Something you _want.”_

“Did you fucking hear me say I love you?”

“I heard it.” _I heard it I want to hear it forever but only if you mean it._

“So what, Steve? Do you just assume everything I say is a lie? Because that’s gonna get old real quick.”

Steve felt close to tears. He wanted to run away and he wanted to shout. When he opened his mouth words fell out in a rush and he didn’t even know what they were, he just knew that he had to say them or he’d burst. “I want you to mean it and I can’t let myself believe it because if it’s not true I don’t think I — “

 _“Fuck.”_ Bucky had always sworn. It wasn’t as though Steve didn’t, ever, but the way Bucky used words like that was always worse, somehow, than when Dernier or Gabe or Dugan swore. Bucky knew it upset him, remembered the look his ma had given him whenever Steve had daringly tried it. Bucky’s dad had sworn black and blue every day and more, and Bucky had never done it except when he _meant_ it, because if there was one thing Bucky didn’t want to be like, it was his dad. Steve recognised, though, that it was a way Bucky used to get rid of tension and Bucky swearing like that made him wince but it also made him _happy_ because it was something _only Bucky would do._ “Steve. You’re a mess.” He came towards him, a bit like he was frightened _Steve_ would run away this time, and took his arm. “I’m a mess and you’re a mess and we were always a better mess together.” His other hand came up and buried itself in Steve’s hair and Steve felt his eyes close. It was so nice, so good to be touched. He tried to remember if anyone else had touched him like this, since waking up from the ice, and he couldn’t. Only Peggy, who had taken his hand and tried to comfort _him_ when she was the one whose world was fracturing around her and none of the pieces fit any more and he hadn’t had the right to barge back into her life when hers was _finished_ and she was whole and…

Bucky pulled him down and kissed him again.

And oh god, oh yes, oh _this._ This this and forever this. He murmured against Bucky’s lips and pushed him back to the counter so he could get some sort of support, press more of himself up against Bucky, have more of _this please._ He felt like a kid at a candy store, allowed to eat whatever he wanted for the first time, when he’d never even known that this feeling in his gut was hunger, never known that there was a bonafide _cure_ for it, right here, right now, in Bucky’s arms.

“You want this,” Steve said, cheek pressed against Bucky’s, hands gently touching places he wasn’t sure were allowed. “I get that. I do too, okay? More than anything. But I’m kind of old fashioned, Bucky, and I want to go slow.”

Bucky gave him a look. Steve didn’t even need to ask, he could _see_ what Bucky was thinking _we’re pressed up against a kitchen counter with dicks as hard as diamond and you want to go fucking_ slow. 

_Screw you Steven Grant Rogers._

“How slow?”

Steve kissed him again. “We’ll work it out.”

As slow as would make them happy.


End file.
